Project information

Pratham Residential Shelter for Boys

Part of the Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children, this shelter will help vulnerable working children get a basic education and a better life by taking them off the streets and giving them somewhere safe to live and learn.

Charity information: Pratham UK

Need

Pratham’s goal of “every child in school & learning well” is severely hindered by the number of working children in India’s towns & cities. There are hundreds of children who due to poverty, abandonment or family migration end up begging on city streets, picking rubbish, or working as illegal child labour in factories & construction sites. Growing up in such difficult conditions means children not only miss out on an education but also a childhood.

Solution

Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children (PCVC) was established with the idea to give working children their basic right to childhood & put them back into the education net. Residential shelters provide children who have been rescued from working conditions with a secure environment where they receive care and attention & the opportunity for holistic development. The path to rehabilitation is paved by preparing children to enter mainstream schools through non-formal education & skill training.

Aim 1

Activities

» Establish a residential shelter where the boys can lead a normal childhood, live and learn for as long as necessary

Children who are no longer working, healthy & learning well at the shelter & within 3 years are repatriated with their families & are continuing to go to school & learning well

Aim 2

Ensure good physical & mental health & encourage the boys to think of a better future for themselves

Activities

» Through individual & group counselling sessions provide psychological support, show the boys the merits of going to school and enhance group bonding » Develop the children’s individual skills by providing sports, music, dance & performance classes & encourage the participation in competitions

Success will be...attitudinal and behavioural changes in all children & a noticeable desire to pursue schooling rather than work.

Impact

The long term aim of PCVC is “no child working and every child in school”. By providing a secure & nurturing environment for rescued children the number of children working will be reduced & their quality of life significantly improved. Awareness will be raised about child labour & along with other PCVC programmes prevalence will be reduced. The desired outcome is that all children in the shelter do not return to work, reach their age appropriate standard of education & enter formal school.

Risk

There is a risk that children will return to work once leaving the shelter, thereby affecting the aims of the programme. In order to minimise this outcome Pratham staff will assess the family situation on a regular basis during the child’s residential stay & after the child is seen as ready to be repatriated into the family. The child’s progress is tracked for the first year in order to assess their health, wellbeing, school attendance and learning level.

Reporting

Donors will receive yearly updates detailing the ongoing & forthcoming activities & the progress of the children in the programme & any significant achievements. Necessary changes that have been made will be reported as & when necessary.

Location

Pratham is currently running 12 shelters across India (2 in Mumbai, 1 in Gujarat, 1 in Jodhpur, 6 in Bihar, 1 in Andhra Pradesh & 1 in Uttar Pradesh) reaching about 600 children every year. Since the beginning of the PCVC programme in 2005, more than 4000 children have been covered, including children temporally admitted in the shelters before being sent home. This shelter is a much needed addition to the programme as many working children have yet to be reached.

Beneficiaries

The direct beneficiaries of this project will be the 50 boys who will be housed in the resident shelter who will receive schooling & support. A knock on benefit will be felt by other working children as the programme will raise awareness regarding child labour & tackle employees who continue to employ children in their businesses. The families of the children will also benefit as through Pratham’s support they will become aware of the importance of education to their children’s future.

Why Us?

Pratham is India's largest education charity & is one of the first charities in India to work on such a large scale with children from working background. The PCVC (Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children) Outreach Programme was launched in 2001 in Mumbai. The primary aim is to reduce the incidence of child labour in Mumbai and other cities across India & to influence official protocol & legislation concerning child labour. So far PCVC has enabled over 25,000 children to be repatriated.